But aren't you the expert?

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Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
10,473
81
101
This is a typical IT meeting also. I wonder what cool-aid the non technical people drink sometimes.
 
Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,710
13,850
126
www.anyf.ca
lol reminds me of when I was a server tech. The IT manager knew nothing about technology and would make some of the most ridiculous statements and requests. He would hear buzzwords and tech words and just jumble them up into a sentence to make himself sound smart. The worse is people like that don't take no for an answer, so you sometimes will find yourself doing something totally ridiculous because you were told, even though it makes absolutely no sense. I was told to disable hyperthreading on the RSA appliance once. I forget what his reasoning was, but I actually laughed, thinking he was joking, and he got mad.

One time he comes in "What's Vmware? Do we even need that? This was a mostly all virtualized environment with at least 60 VMs running across 10ish servers. Umm yeah, I'm pretty sure we need Vmware.
 
Z

ZaneNBK

Golden Member
Sep 14, 2000
1,674
0
76
Red Squirrel said:
lol reminds me of when I was a server tech. The IT manager knew nothing about technology and would make some of the most ridiculous statements and requests. He would hear buzzwords and tech words and just jumble them up into a sentence to make himself sound smart. The worse is people like that don't take no for an answer, so you sometimes will find yourself doing something totally ridiculous because you were told, even though it makes absolutely no sense. I was told to disable hyperthreading on the RSA appliance once. I forget what his reasoning was, but I actually laughed, thinking he was joking, and he got mad.

One time he comes in "What's Vmware? Do we even need that? This was a mostly all virtualized environment with at least 60 VMs running across 10ish servers. Umm yeah, I'm pretty sure we need Vmware.
Click to expand...

I used to have a boss (well, my boss' boss) that would continually ask me to research shit that was either stupid or far from ready for wide adoption. After one of the many times I told him his insane/stupid shit wouldn't work, he asked me why I always told him no. Maybe because you keep asking for stupid shit that won't work?

For instance, he wanted me to tell him we could convert everyone over to Citrix (pre-remote desktop) dumb terminals back in the mid to late 90's. This was back when Citrix was an add-on to Windows 3.51 and still a very rough solution. On top of that, this was in a company with thousands of people in one location, running primarily on 100Mbps ethernet (though there was a gigabit backbone). The ethernet was almost always running near capacity and slow due to the number of users per switch and Citrix terminals were all pretty slow and shitty at the time. Performance was pretty poor for anything but basic word processing and Excel use.

I think I finally convinced him to drop it by pointing out that a network failure would mean everyone affected would be unable to work at all. Network problems were much more common then, partly due to the over-saturation. At least when the network went down with normal PCs, the majority of our users could still get some work done.
 
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Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
Markbnj said:
A colleague sent this to me this morning. Hilarious, for engineers anyway.
Click to expand...
"Traumatic" was the word I had in mind.



1) Hire engineers to design things and solve problems.
2) Let Sales, Marketing, and upper management micromanage the primary design, overriding engineering's "pessimistic" observations, which are based on experience, physics, and geometry.
3) The engineers spend a few more minutes of their lives contemplating efficient means of suicide.
 
brianmanahan

brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
24,637
6,016
136
this is scary accurate

at work i am starting on a system functionality change that has been attempted (and failed) 4 times before, because of the difficulty of the change combined with the unwillingness of the business to allow more time for it. and that was when this team had 10 people - now we have been cut down to 3 people :(

i am trying really hard not to make this failure 5. i will try really hard to get OKs to cut back scope as things get more complicated (which they will). but i dunno if that will be enough, or even approved :(
 
Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
brianmanahan said:
this is scary accurate

at work i am starting on a system functionality change that has been attempted (and failed) 4 times before, because of the difficulty of the change combined with the unwillingness of the business to allow more time for it. and that was when this team had 10 people - now we have been cut down to 3 people :(

i am trying really hard not to make this failure 5. i will try really hard to get OKs to cut back scope as things get more complicated (which they will). but i dunno if that will be enough, or even approved :(
Click to expand...
"Yes, I know that there's a machine on the market that does what we need, but also that it costs $400k. Can't we just build one ourselves?"
Then you find that "build one ourselves" also included, "I'm expecting it to be done in under a month, for under $5k."
Or, "Here's one for $30k. Can we make that one work?"

All the while, that darn pesky physics thing sits in the corner, giggling quietly.
 
WhoBeDaPlaya

WhoBeDaPlaya

Diamond Member
Sep 15, 2000
7,415
404
126
Between showing my colleagues Gangnam Style and now this clip early, I'm apparently now the "hip" guy in the group o_O
 
Markbnj

Markbnj

Elite Member <br>Moderator Emeritus
Moderator
Sep 16, 2005
15,682
14
81
www.markbetz.net
Jeff7 said:
"Traumatic" was the word I had in mind.



1) Hire engineers to design things and solve problems.
2) Let Sales, Marketing, and upper management micromanage the primary design, overriding engineering's "pessimistic" observations, which are based on experience, physics, and geometry.
3) The engineers spend a few more minutes of their lives contemplating efficient means of suicide.
Click to expand...

Come on, man, the way the stereotyped Asian smart guy said "Geometry?" was hilarious.
 
Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
Markbnj said:
Come on, man, the way the stereotyped Asian smart guy said "Geometry?" was hilarious.
Click to expand...
I've had to use "Physics." in similar manner on more than one occasion. :\

(I'm just a basic white&nerdy guy though.)
 
brianmanahan

brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
24,637
6,016
136
Jeff7 said:
I've had to use "Physics." in similar manner on more than one occasion. :\

(I'm just a basic white&nerdy guy though.)
Click to expand...

unfortunately i am in business software, so ANYTHING is possible simply by typing a couple pages of code :rolleyes:
 
Ryland

Ryland

Platinum Member
Aug 9, 2001
2,810
13
81
I just came off a project that was just like that, but without the kittens...or the balloons. The lines were there though.
 
NikolaeVarius

NikolaeVarius

Lifer
Oct 25, 2006
11,036
11
91
I think the worst part of the video is that many people are like "lol I'm like the engineer, I hate stupid people" when they don't realize how ignorant they are either.

Especially the ones that say stupid things about topics they know nothing a bout.
 
disappoint

disappoint

Lifer
Dec 7, 2009
10,132
382
126
NikolaeVarius said:
I think the worst part of the video is that many people are like "lol I'm like the engineer, I hate stupid people" when they don't realize how ignorant they are either.

Especially the ones that say stupid things about topics they know nothing a bout.
Click to expand...

Well don't stop there man! Give us some examples, links maybe? Anyone specific on ATOT you had in mind or is this strictly general public in real life people? Coworkers? You don't have to mention names of course but can you give us those examples in the form of a kitten?
 
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